In oil and gas exploration it is desirable to understand the structure and properties of the geological formation surrounding a borehole, in order to determine if the formation contains hydrocarbon resources (oil and/or gas), to estimate the amount and producibility of hydrocarbon contained in the formation, and to evaluate the best options for completing the well in production. A significant aid in this evaluation is the use of wireline logging and/or logging-while-drilling (LWD) or measurement-while-drilling (MWD) measurements of the formation surrounding the borehole (referred to collectively as “logs” or “log measurements”). Typically, one or more logging tools are lowered into the borehole and the tool readings or measurement logs are recorded as the tools traverse the borehole. These measurement logs are used to infer the desired formation properties.
NMR logging has become very important for purposes of formation evaluation and is one of the preferred methods for determining formation parameters because of its non-destructive character. Improvements in the NMR logging tools, as well as advances in data analysis and interpretation allow log analysts to generate detailed reservoir description reports, including clay-bound and capillary-bound related porosity, estimates of the amounts of bound and free fluids, fluid types (i.e., oil, gas and water), permeability and other properties of interest. In general, NMR logging devices may be separate from the drilling apparatus (in what is known as wireline logging), or they may be lowered into the borehole along with the drilling apparatus, enabling NMR measurement while drilling is taking place. The latter types of tools are known in the art as logging-while-drilling (LWD) or measurement-while-drilling (MWD) logging tools
NMR tools used in practical applications include, for example, the centralized MRIL® tool made by NUMAR Corporation, a Halliburton company, and the sidewall CMR tool made by Schlumberger. The MRIL® tool is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,710,713 to Taicher et al. and in various other publications including: “Spin Echo Magnetic Resonance Logging Porosity and Free Fluid Index Determination,” by Miller, Paltiel, Gillen, Granot and Bouton, SPE 20561, 65th Annual Technical Conference of the SPE, New Orleans, La., Sep. 23-26, 1990; “Improved Log Quality With a Dual-Frequency Pulsed NMR Tool,” by Chandler, Drack, Miller and Prammer, SPE 28365, 69th Annual Technical Conference of the SPE, New Orleans, La., Sep. 25-28, 1994. Certain details of the structure and the use of the MRIL® tool, as well as the interpretation of various measurement parameters are also discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,717,876; 4,717,877; 4,717,878; 5,212,447; 5,280,243; 5,309,098; 5,412,320; 5,517,115, 5,557,200; 5,696,448; 5,936,405; 6,005,389; 6,023,164; 6,051,973; 6,107,796; 6,111,408; 6,242,913; 6,255,819; 6,268,726; 6,362,619; 6,512,371; 6,525,534; 6,531,868; 6,541,969; 6,577,125 and 6,583,621. The structure and operation of the Schlumberger CMR tool is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,939,648; 5,055,787 and 5,055,788 and further in “Novel NMR Apparatus for Investigating an External Sample,” by Kleinberg, Sezginer and Griffin, J. Magn. Reson. 97, 466-485, 1992; and “An Improved NMR Tool Design for Faster Logging,” D. McKeon et al., SPWLA 40th Annual Logging Symposium, May-June 1999. The content of the above patents is hereby expressly incorporated by reference for all purposes, and all non-patent references are incorporated by reference for background.
NMR logging is based on the observation that when an assembly of magnetic moments, such as those of hydrogen nuclei, are exposed to a static magnetic field, they tend to align along the direction of the magnetic field, resulting in bulk magnetization. The rate at which equilibrium is established in such bulk magnetization is characterized by the parameter T1, known as the spin-lattice relaxation time. The T1 parameter characterizes the coupling of nuclear spins to energy-absorbing molecular motions like rotation, vibration and translation.
Another related and frequently used NMR logging parameter is the spin-spin relaxation time T2 (also known as transverse relaxation time), which is an expression of the relaxation due to non-homogeneities in the local magnetic field over the sensing volume of the logging tool. In general, the mechanisms for spin-spin relaxation time T2 include, in addition to those contributing to T1, the exchange of energy between spins. Both the T1 and the T2 relaxation times provide information about formation porosity, composition and quantity of formation fluid, and other parameters important in oil exploration.
The pioneers in NMR measurement technologies envisioned the relaxation time T1 as the primary measurement result because it carries only information about the liquid-solid surface relaxation and bulk-fluid relaxation. In particular, unlike the transverse relaxation time T2, the spin lattice relaxation parameter T1 is not affected by rock-internal magnetic field gradients or by differences in fluid diffusivity. Moreover, instrument artifacts influence T1 measurements to a much lesser degree than T2 measurements.
Despite this understanding, modern pulsed NMR logging in the early 1990s was based primarily on T2 measurements, largely because of hardware limitations. Specifically, the construction of the T1 recovery curve requires data collected with multiple wait times that range from a few milliseconds to several seconds. Acquiring T1 data using tools that operated in single-frequency mode without effective pre-polarization was too time-consuming and not feasible. T2 measurements, on the other hand, were faster and contained information similar to T1 at low resonance frequencies. As a result, T2 CPMG measurements were chosen as the main mode of tool operation.
One characteristic of NMR logging is that unlike many other logging methods the measurements are not instantaneous. Each measurement cycle, including the wait time needed for polarization, can take several seconds. Frequently, several cycles have to be stacked to achieve adequate signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
Thus, if a cycle takes T seconds to complete, and N cycles must be stacked, the vertical resolution of a measurement is inversely proportional to vNT, where v is the logging speed. Clearly, the longer the cycle times and the higher the logging speeds, the worse the vertical resolution. Therefore, an ever-present challenge in NMR logging is to design tools that can log faster, while retaining acceptable vertical resolution. For practical reasons overcoming this challenge is a important task. Several innovations towards faster logging have been put into practice over the past several years.
One such innovation was the introduction of multi-frequency logging in the early 1990s. The benefit of multi-frequency logging is that the tools acquire data simultaneously over several frequencies, and the additional SNR available can be used to speed up logging as well as to obtain higher-quality results. The state-of-the-art in multi-frequency logging is the MRIL®-Prime tool by Numar, a Halliburton Corporation, which currently can operate on 9 frequencies.
Another innovation was the introduction of simultaneous acquisition of partially and fully polarized echo trains with different SNR. Proper total porosity measurements require: (1) a short interecho time Te to sample fast decays, (2) high SNR to reduce the uncertainty in the estimation of fast decays, (3) long sampling time (NeTe where Ne is the number of echoes) for adequate sampling of longer decays. It is practically impossible to achieve all these objectives with a unique wait time Tw, Te and Ne combination; while maintaining acceptable logging speeds and vertical resolution. Therefore, one solution is to optimize the acquisition by mixing partially and fully recovered data with different measurement parameters Tw, Te, Ne and desired SNR. Another closely related innovation was the concept of simultaneous-inversion, where data acquired with different measurement parameters is inverted simultaneously using forward models that properly account for the differences in fluid NMR properties, acquisition parameters and noise levels.
Yet another innovation was the use of pre-polarization. In this approach the cycle time for each measurement is shortened, by placing static magnets above the antenna section to realize additional polarization during tool motion. Current generation NMR tools generally contain pre-polarization sections, allowing overall faster logging. Various other approaches have been attempted in the art, including the patents listed above.
The focus of this application is on novel systems and methods for T1 NMR logging alone or in combination other logging techniques. As discussed in application Ser. No. 60/474,747, filed on May 3, 2003, to the same assignee as the present application, T1 logging adds a different dimension to interpretation, sometimes by complementing T2 logs, sometimes uniquely by itself. The '747 application is incorporated herein for all purposes. The novel technical approaches in accordance with the present invention directed to overcoming problems associated with the prior art are discussed below.